


More Than an Hour

by shadesofstory



Category: Runaways (TV 2017)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-11
Packaged: 2019-10-23 04:23:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17676371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesofstory/pseuds/shadesofstory
Summary: 97 days have passed since Karolina told Nico she would meet her back at the hostel in an hour.Okay, not in real life, but it feels like it. So here's a post season 2 two-part.





	1. Chapter 1

{Day 97}

Nico's fingers were pale and cold as she gripped her staff again, staring through it to the empty pillow opposite her. She was on her side, knees tucked up to her chest, mind running through an increasingly short list of synonyms. 

It had been 97 days since Karolina didn't make it back to the hostel. 95 days of Nico pretending to keep it together for the good of the group. 52 days since Alex came up with a plan and they managed to rescue Gert. A day after that Old Lace had somehow found them all again. 40 days since Gert and Old Lace left in the middle of the night and 33 days since they turned up with Chase. That was a day Nico would never forget. 

{Day 64}

"She's coming back, Molly. They both are," Nico told her, gripping the younger girl's shoulder with what she hoped felt like confidence rather than desperation. "You know she would never leave you."

Alex pushed up his glasses and stared at the ceiling, most likely calculating some scheme to try and find them. A scheme Nico knew she would go along with, even it was completely crazy, because these people were the last family she had left. And she wasn't losing any of them.

Any more of them. 

But she pushed Karolina from her mind as quickly as she could. Today was about keeping it together. Every day-- every minute-- was about keeping it together. 

"The question is why would she leave in the first place?" Alex asked, talking more to himself than the others. They had the same conversation a hundred times over the past week. "It doesn't make any sense, even if she is going after Chase. She would have to know our chances together are--"

Nico's eyes snapped to Alex. That was new. "What are you talking about? What do you mean she's going after Chase?"

"It's just a theory," he answered, still looking up into the bit of sky they could see from the hostel, "I can’t think of any other reason for her to just go like that."

"Actually that makes sense," said Molly, her voice rising in excitement, "she wouldn't tell us because she knew it would be dangerous, and she wouldn't want to risk anything happening to us because of her plan."

"No," Nico answered, her voice dangerously low, "No, Alex, when I-- when I said I was going after Karolina alone you begged me to stay for the sake of everyone here. You told me we would come up with a plan to get them all back together."

Alex's eyes were now darting between Molly, who had stood up in anticipation of a Gert-finding mission, and Nico, whose effort to remain calm made her look like she was holding a particularly difficult spell for far too long. Maybe she was. "Look, guys, I don't know for sure that's where she went, okay? And Nico, it's not like she asked my opinion before she took off."

Nico had stood up too, almost without realizing it, her staff extended in her hand. "If we're all going to be fine with Gert leaving to get Chase, then there's no way in hell that I'm just sitting in this place for one more day without actually trying to--"

"Gert?" 

Alex's expression made Nico's voice give out, and she spun around on the spot. 

Old Lace was standing in the entrance of the hostel, a person dangling from her mouth. The purple hair hanging limply across Gert's face was the only giveaway that it was her. She was covered in dirt and-- Nico's stomach dropped-- what could only be blood. She took a step toward them only to be almost knocked over by Molly, who sprinted past her, eyes glowing yellow. And then Chase slid from the back of the dinosaur and landed awkwardly on the floor, clearly favoring his right leg. 

Nico knew the first thing she should be feeling, first thing she should be asking, was whether or not they were okay. Old Lace had gently deposited Gert into Molly's arms, and Nico felt a surge of relief flood through her when Gert stirred. Chase had barely greeted them before he knelt down next to Molly, cradling Gert's head in his arms. 

Alex had run past Nico, too, skidding to a stop around the huddle and firing off ten questions a second, the same questions Nico should be asking. Chase was answering as well as he could with his attention completely devoted to Gert. 

They had been held in the lab in his parents' basement. He and his mom had been taken at the same time. The aliens from Jonah's ship had taken over Tina and Stacey's bodies. Gert found Chase in one of the healing tubes, and she and Old Lace caught Stacey off-guard when they barged in, managing to knock her out and damage the tube enough to get to Chase. They would have made a clean getaway if Jonah hadn't shot light at their car from half a mile away and sent them off the edge of a hill into a gulley. Gert had hit her head, but she was going to be fine. He looked up at them for the first time, brown eyes searching each of their faces. 

"She has to be fine, right?" he asked, more sincerely than Nico had ever heard him. 

Alex stopped asking questions and clapped Chase on the shoulder. "Yeah, man. She's going to be fine."

Nico was still processing information, although she had managed to walk to the rest of the group and kneel down at Gert’s side near Alex. Not everything Chase had told them was new. Nico, Molly, and Alex had found about Tina and Stacey at least a month before, though, when Xavin had volunteered to spy and get information. They found out Nico's dad survived the fight, and Frank was still being held by Gibborum. After learning that, Leslie decided to go back to the desert compound when she got close to her due date, deciding that being with her mother and medical care was better than being without her daughter or, on bad days, even soap. Xavin volunteered to take the Leslie, "the holy mother of the betrothed" to the compound. They hadn't come back yet. 

Gert groaned softly and turned, opening her eyes. She found Chase first, and Nico had to bite back the heat rising in her throat when she saw the way Gert looked at him, drinking him in, making sure he was there-- really there. 64 days since she had opened her eyes to find a pair of ocean blue ones looking back at her. 64 days, and she had realized on day 5 that the next morning would be the longest she had gone without seeing Karolina ever. Even after Amy died, she had seen her around school or the neighborhood. From the first time she met Karolina, she hadn't gone more than a week without catching a glimpse of her, and now-- 

She shook her head, forcing herself to snap out of it. Now Chase and Gert were back. She should be celebrating that. 

Gert looked at Molly next, smiling up at her little sister with an apology in her eyes. "I'm sorry I left you, Molls," she whispered, her eyes suddenly brimming with tears, "I couldn't risk something happening to you, and I knew you would never let me go alone."

Molly laughed through her tears, shaking her head. "I'm totally going to yell at you later, but for now I'm just glad you're back. Never do that to me again?"

Gert chuckled. "Promise."

Old Lace nudged Nico on the shoulder, and she glanced up, smiling at the dinosaur before catching Chase's eye. He was staring at her like he had bad news, and Nico knew he had never been very good at hiding his thoughts. She opened her mouth to ask him to spit it out when she heard Gert's voice, soft. 

"Nico."

Nico closed her eyes. They had theorized, over hours and hours of hashing out the same scenarios, same facts, same inevitable conclusions, that Jonah had probably taken Karolina to the same place he was keeping Chase and Janet. They knew his human body had to be regenerated, and they knew that now Tina and Stacey's would be, too. They knew, although none of them had ever said it out loud, that Karolina's half-human, half-alien biology would more likely than not create the best energy source. Privately, Nico tortured herself with wondering whether that meant they would harvest her first or last. Whether they would try to use her more than once. Whether she was cold in that sunless, lifeless lab. Whether she could still remember the girl who loved her. Whether her heart was even still beating. Asking the questions had been agony. Nico opened her eyes. The answers could only be worse than the questions if Karolina was already dead. Or at least that's what she told herself as she forced herself to look down at Gert. 

"Nico, I'm so sorry," Gert said, her voice breaking. "I promised myself I wouldn't leave without Karolina if she was there, and she was, but..." 

Chase squeezed Gert's hand. "She was in the box, Nico. Jonah was in the other one, and that's why it took him so long to figure out what was going on and shoot us off the road."

"I didn't know how to open the box without Jonah realizing we were there, and he would have just taken all of us, so I-- I left her." Fresh tears started down Gert's face, and she turned her head into Chase's chest. "Oh my God, I left her."

"It's not your fault." Nico's voice sounded wooden, even to herself. "You're right, he would have just kept all of you."

"There's more," Chase said, "but we should get Gert to a doctor first. She's hurt."

"No, Chase," Gert spoke, "she needs to know now. I'm fine."

Chase glanced down at the gash across Gert's hairline, but he nodded, jaw clenched. When he spoke, his voice was tight. "Yesterday, when they put her in the box, it was only the second time that anyone had been in the other one."

Alex frowned. "So they had harvested... used her once before?"

"Yeah, and it was-- she was weak afterward, but alive. They woke me up to watch, just to show me what they were capable of, I guess. I don't really know why. But they had been putting her in the box a lot without anyone in the other side. They had it hooked up to this machine, like they were trying to transfer her energy to some sort of battery pack. At first I thought they were creating it as a contingency, in case they couldn't get anyone for a while, but then I figured out they were experimenting with the energy. Trying to use it to increase itself, I think. They would-- they were, like, giving it back to her somehow after they messed with it. It changed the color of her glow when they did it, at least temporarily." Chase looked down. "It was hurting her. I know it was hurting her."

Nico stood up abruptly, catching everyone off guard and then swaying on the spot when black danced in front of her eyes. 

Alex grabbed her arm to steady her, but Nico shook him off. “We have to find her. Are you listening to me, Alex? I am leaving right now, and I am not coming back until I have her, okay? She’s hurt, and she’s alone, and—“

“Nico,” Alex interrupted, “They will have increased security, taken precautions since Gert was able to get Chase out. They may have even moved her, so we should at least wait until we’re all healthy enough to try and break her out before you just go running in there and get yourself killed.”

Nico could feel the panic rising in her chest, making her sick with adrenaline and fear. It was fight or flight with no one to battle and nowhere to go. Her staff was extended and glowing, but she ignored it. No matter how times she had begged it to find Karolina, no matter how many ways she asked, it had stayed unyielding. 

“You don’t understand,” she felt herself yelling now, breaking down in front of everyone, but she didn’t care. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. It never did! I have to see her. I have to see her, now. Please, please, let me see her. Karolina, I’m so sorry. I’m…”

The end of her sentence faded as the staff suddenly sprang to life. An image formed in the air, and suddenly, there she was. 

“Karolina,” Nico whispered, not daring to move in case it made the picture fade. But now the image was moving, like a movie projected from the staff into the air. Everyone was silent. 

Karolina was in the box.

Her skin was pale and sallow, and dark circles had sunk in deeply beneath her eyes. Her usual glow was gone, washed out under florescent lights, and her hair draped lankly across her shoulders. But she was breathing. And she was the most beautiful thing Nico had ever seen. 

Nico reached out with her hand not holding the staff, but her fingers fell through empty air. 

“That was disappointing,” Jonah said in Victor’s voice. 

Chase paled, tightening his grip on Gert. 

Two arms reached down and picked Karolina up roughly by the shoulders, lifting her to a sitting position before hoisting her out of the box. The image shifted, and Nico could see the whole lab now, with Karolina slung over Victor’s shoulder. She couldn’t take her eyes off of her, off her stillness, her limpness. 

But not lack of life, she reminded herself. She’s alive. She’s alive. 

Victor set Karolina back in the tube and adjusted the settings so Karolina’s body straightened out and faced directly ahead. 

“I’m going to have to use her, Jonah,” said Stacey, walking into the frame with an ice pack pressed against the side of her head. “I know you wanted to save her energy for your experiments, but it won’t do us much good if these bodies we’re in fall apart.”

“Not fair,” Tina whined, following on Stacey’s heels. “You two have both already had a chance, so that means it’s my turn now. I have like four hang nails already.”

Nico’s gut clenched when she saw her mother. She was evil before, Nico knew that. And now she was evil again. Same difference, even if it didn’t feel like it. A rational voice in the back of Nico’s mind reminded her that no matter what happened it was still okay to love her mother, even to be worried about her, but Nico ignored it. Victor was talking again. 

“Look, we have to be rational about this. She’s the only source we have left at the moment, and she potentially holds the key to renewable energy for us, energy that we can create on our own. Imagine the freedom we would have if we weren’t dependent on humans any more—“

“She is not the only source,” Tina interrupted, hands on her hips. “We have Janet just sitting around here sucking up air and, like, all the Cheetos by the way, so we need more. And we should just use her.”

Victor sighed. “I’ve explained, darling, that my host puts up quite the resistance when I seriously considered harvesting her before. I’m waiting for him to quiet down, and then we can. But it’s pointless to waste energy fighting him right now when we have a viable source right in front of us. We just have to conserve for a while. If we harvest her again within the next few days, well, we would likely be wasting an invaluable scientific goldmine.”

Nico fell to her knees, barely having noticed the energy the spell had been sapping from her. 

“No!” she shouted, fighting to keep the picture up, “please.” 

But Karolina faded away, and she was left staring into Molly, Chase, and Gert’s stricken faces. 

“You guys, we have to go get her,” Molly said, breaking the stunned silence. “We can’t wait anymore, or she’ll—she looked really bad.”

“How long have you been able to do that?” Alex asked, staring at Nico. 

Nico blinked, eyes still searching the place Karolina had been seconds before. “I—do what?”

“Um, that staff astral projection thing you just did,” Chase answered, motioning at the empty air. “Where did that come from?”

Alex frowned. “It’s not technically astral projection—“

“Guys,” Molly shouted, “did you hear what I said? We have to go get her now.”

{Day 97}

It had been 97 days since Karolina didn’t make it back to the hostel. 97 nights that Nico broke her daytime façade and faced the dreams that came with the dark. And 33 days since she figured out that she could still see Karolina, even if she couldn’t touch her. She could still remind herself that Karolina was alive, even if every day the likelihood of that fact being true the next diminished. 

She had already used the words see, view, watch, stare (she felt semi-creepy saying it, but Gert’s thesaurus was too moldy to be all that helpful), observe, gaze, peer, gape, and over a dozen others. Nico had started keeping a notebook with her to write down new synonyms when she thought of them throughout the day, which had proved to be helpful for doing more than see Karolina every night. But there are only so many ways to ask to see someone, and she was running out. An obvious one had occurred to her that morning though, so obvious she couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought of it before. 

Nico steeled herself, choking on her nightly fear that she would say the words and it wouldn’t work or, far worse, that it would work and show her something that she experienced in her nightmares every time she closed her eyes. Karolina dead. 

“Let me look at Karolina,” she whispered, “please.”

The by now familiar projection hovered over her staff, filling the room with its dim light. Nico stared at the image as it formed, ignoring her hammering heart as Karolina appeared in front of her. She was there, eyes closed, body upright in the healing tube.

“Hi,” Nico murmured softly, scooting toward the projection in an effort that had longed proved to be in vain. “It’s been 97 days, now. Chase’s new Fistigons are almost finished, and Alex says found a way to hack into the Stein’s surveillance, so it shouldn’t be like last time. We won’t fail or leave without…” 

Nico’s throat got tight, and she stopped talking, instead outlining the details of Karolina’s face with her eyes, memorizing it and then memorizing it again. 

After a few minutes, Nico spoke again. “I was thinking about that time we were fighting, after Jonah, and you thought I’d called your name, remember? You said it had been a long week, and I was feeling—well, relieved that you were speaking to me at all, but also awkward and tired, so I just said “tell me about it,” which could have ruined the moment. But it didn’t because of you, Karolina. You told me that you’d like to tell me about it, and God, I was so grateful in that moment. It was the first time I thought maybe we’d be find a way to be okay. It sounds crazy, but I would give anything just to hear you tell me about your day again.”

Karolina’s face remained blank, as always. Her eyes never opened, and if hadn’t been for the gentle rise and fall of her chest, Nico might have believed they never would again. Nico, feeling the pull of the spell growing heavier, was about to close her eyes when suddenly two arms reached forward into the tube and hoisted Karolina up. The staff shifted the view, and for the first time since the night Nico had originally accidently activated the projection, she saw Victor, Tina, and Stacey again. This time, however, Stacey looked bad, her skin flaking and scaling like dried paint.

Nico sat up, hardly daring to breath.

“Yesterday’s experiment was enough of a success that I think we can risk using her to restore your energy, my love,” Victor told Stacey, lowering Karolina into the box. “She might survive it, but even if she doesn’t, I’d say we’ve gotten what we can from her. Besides, rumor has it that there might be another one born--”

The staff dropped from Nico’s hand, and the image flickered out, but Nico was already sprinting into the hallway. No more waiting. They were getting Karolina back that night, even if she had to die trying. 


	2. Day 98

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to get the gang back together (maybe).
> 
>  
> 
> Part two of what used to be post season 2 two shot and is now going to be three chapters because I have no chill.

{Day 98}

On the way to the Stein’s, all packed together in the old car, Nico watched the moon. She had always felt a camaraderie with the night, especially after Amy died. The darkness was the only place she could go to find peace—maybe because it reflected the absence inside of her or maybe just because she didn’t have to hide when no one could see her anyway. But when Karolina kissed her for the first time, earnest and golden, Nico realized the sun’s embrace could be just as alluring. She had felt whole. More than that, she had remembered why feeling whole mattered. Standing there in that moment, with Karolina’s hands on her face, Karolina’s fingers in her hair, Nico remembered how the day always complemented the night without diminishing it. She was stunned she ever could have forgotten.

Nico rolled down her window to feel the warm twilight breeze hit her face. The sun had set. She was at home again now, with the moon. And she was ready to battle in its silver light.

 

{Day 2}

Nico sat outside the hostel, staring up at the stars from the top of the hill. She was cold, the evening wind blowing across her bare arms, but she ignored it. In fact, in some ways she welcomed the discomfort. She should be cold. She had let Karolina distract the drone. She had let her sacrifice herself, and now Jonah had her.

Alex had tried to keep everyone calm, come up with a plan, but with Molly beside herself over losing track of Gert, Xavin unable to understand the full spectrum of human emotion, and Nico unreachable and inconsolable, it was clear that they would be able to piece themselves back together only after they allowed themselves to fall apart. Molly had disappeared into her bedroom, and Alex busied himself at his computer. No one noticed or cared where Xavin and Leslie went.

But Nico couldn’t go back into the treehouse. She couldn’t look at the bed she and Karolina had slept in together, memories of rainbows glinting across the walls. She couldn’t pick up Karolina’s yellow jacket or her rings or the stupid tiara that was still sitting on the dresser. She had cried through sunset, letting sobs silently rack her body as she replayed her last moments with Karolina over and over in her mind.

The way Karolina had smiled when Nico had said “I lamp you” had been enough for Nico to know she could never love anyone the way she loved the girl standing in front of her right then. Her miracle was so much more than her ability to glow or fly—it was Karolina herself. Always finding the hope in desperation, the compassion in turmoil.

Nico cried as hard as she ever had, so desperate for air that unconsciousness threatened to overwhelm her, but she pushed it back. She wanted to feel the pain. She needed it. Pain had kept her alive before, it had motivated her before. She knew she could channel it again.

But not yet. Because, at least for the first full day of it, the pain was winning.

Her tears had stopped eventually, after the last rays of sun faded across the horizon, leaving only traces of purple against a quickly blackening sky. She was alone again, in the night. It had just never felt so dark before.

Nico shivered involuntarily and then jumped as a blanket spread across her shoulders. She spun around, expecting to see Alex.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. You looked like you might be getting cold out here.”

Leslie’s eyes, Nico noticed for the first time, were almost the exact shade of blue as Karolina’s. She swallowed back the fresh heat in her throat and managed a nod.

“Thanks.”

Leslie took a step closer, her eyes searching Nico’s tear-stained face. “Do you mind if I sit with you for a minute? I needed to get some fresh air.”

Nico nodded again, jaw clenched, and turned back toward the sky. She knew that Leslie was a murderer, an untrustworthy criminal who had done the right thing only when doing the wrong thing finally stopped benefitting her. But Nico also knew that Leslie loved Karolina. And for that moment, in the dark, their shared grief was enough.

“You know, growing up Karolina was such a happy kid. She was the cutest little girl, all blonde hair and toothy smiles and big blue eyes. She used to come home from school and talk to me for hours about how she had learned to play hopscotch or spell a new word or paint a picture. It’s funny, but I was just never worried about her because she always managed to see the best in life, from the very beginning.”

Nico looked over at Leslie, who was staring down into the city lights, caught in her memory.

“The first time she told me about you was when she was 9 years old. You two already knew each other, of course, from the Pride meetings, but I think that must have been the year she really noticed you for the first time. She came home from school, and she said that Nico has the prettiest hair she’s ever seen because it shines in the sunlight like gold.”

Leslie chuckled, and Nico felt her looking at her, but she didn’t turn.

“I told her that gold was yellow, and your hair was black, but she just laughed and said it was ‘like black gold then, Mom.’ Frank heard her and he played along, told her that black gold was the most valuable kind because it’s the rarest, and she got all serious— you know, that same expression she has now with her eyes just round and sincere.”

Nico nodded despite herself, unable to stop new tears from tracing down her cheeks.

“She looked at him like that, and she just nodded like she had never heard anything more true in her life.”

Leslie swallowed, taking a breath to steady her suddenly shaking voice. “For the next few years, we heard about you all the time—Nico this, Nico that, Nico wears eyeliner so why can’t I, Nico likes Pink Floyd, Nico said the funniest thing in English class, Nico is so good at math—“

Nico snorted, biting her lip. “I was terrible at math.”

Leslie laughed. “Well, as far as Karolina was concerned, you could do no wrong.”

They sat quietly, both lost in the past, before Leslie continued.

“But then after a while, she stopped talking about you, stopped talking about anyone really,” Leslie explained, her tone growing increasingly serious. “She got more quiet, more involved with the church. She always stayed friendly, always positive, but I worried she was lonely. I was worried that being involved in Gibborum was isolating her.”

“Yeah, well, cults have a tendency to do that,” Nico shot back before she could stop herself. “She tried so hard to be whatever you wanted that it took her finding out you were a murderer before she even considered that it might be okay to just be herself.”

“I know,” said Leslie, her voice low. “Believe me, I regret that more than I can say. And I will for the rest of my life. There was a time, after Amy died—“

Nico stiffened at the words, and she straightened, staring straight ahead into nothing.

“I was so afraid. I watched Karolina, watched all of you, losing each other. It’s going to sound crazy, but I’m almost glad you found out what we were doing that day at the Wilder’s house. Karolina, you, Molly, Alex, everyone… you’ve created a family in a way that we never did. And I’ve never seen Karolina happier than when she’s with you.”

They sat in silence for a moment, both staring out into the night. Nico swiped at her eyes, hating the tears that kept coming.

“I let her distract that drone alone,” Nico whispered, choking on the words. “I couldn’t even—I couldn’t do anything to protect her. I couldn’t talk, couldn’t tell her that I... I couldn’t do anything but stand there.”

“Nico,” Leslie moved her hand to Nico’s blanket covered arm, and Nico finally met her eyes. “You can find her. You can save her. I know you can. And please, take the advice of someone who would give anything to go back and follow it herself—take care of your family. All of them. They need you, so don’t give up.”

{Day 98}

When they were four blocks from Chase’s house, Alex broke the tense silence.

“Remember, this can’t be like last time. We can’t let them manipulate us into giving up.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Chase snapped back, “neither one of your parents is inhabited by an alien that’s slowly taking over their brain.”

“You know what, you’re right, my parents are just in prison for the rest of their lives taking the rap for murders that all of our parents committed. My bad.”

“Knock it off, both of you,” said Molly. “The only way this is going to work is if we stick together.”

“Look, I know I was the one that called it last time, but we’re moving too early,” Alex answered, “the Fistigons aren’t ready yet, and the virus I was planning on planting isn’t finished—“

“It doesn’t matter if we’re ready.” Nico’s voice was soft, but her tone ended the discussion. “I saw them putting her back in the box. If we don’t do this tonight, Karolina’s dead.”

{Day 69}

They hadn’t tried to get Karolina as soon as Molly demanded, but between Nico’s insistence that she would leave alone and Molly’s constant barrage of questioning as to when they were going to actually try and do something about the situation, Alex and Chase finally agreed to a mission. Chase had wanted to stay with Gert, but she reminded him that it wasn’t 1952, she could take care of herself, and Old Lace was a better guard than he was anyway. Nico knew that despite all of that, Gert wanted him to stay. She had never been more grateful for Gert’s bravery. They needed all the help they could get.

Only it turned out that all the help they could get was nowhere near enough.

“Stacey, no!”

Molly was staring at Stacey, who was propping Karolina, unconscious, up in one arm and standing in front of Tina. Her hand was glowing.

Nico groaned and rolled over, forcing herself onto her knees. She managed to hold the spell that had temporarily blocked Jonah, but the viciousness of her mother’s attack had caught her off guard. Tina’s last kick had dislocated Nico’s shoulder, and her hand was shaking with the effort of gripping the staff. Alex was standing next to Nico, blood dripping from his nose, and Chase was on the floor, holding the leg that hadn’t had nearly enough time to heal after the car crash with one hand and pointing a Fistigon at Tina with the other.

“Look, it’s a simple choice,” Stacey said, the voice of the alien so unlike Stacey’s usual happy chirp that it made her words all the more unnerving. “You either leave now or I kill one of these two. My daughter can find another host, and frankly, this one,” she tilted her toward Karolina, “is not worth all that much to us anymore. Her energy is more or less sapped regardless.”

Molly looked at Nico, eyes wide. “What do we do?”

“We leave,” Alex said.

Nico shook her head, her breathing shallow with pain.

Alex looked down at her, and the slight nod of his head filled her eyes with tears.

“You shouldn’t have to make this decision, Nico, so I’m making it for us. We’re leaving. You’re not going to decide between the life of your mom and the life of your girlfriend, not tonight.”

Molly nodded at him, and then sprinted to Chase, hoisting him easily across her shoulders. Alex followed them toward the door, but Nico didn’t move. She couldn’t move, not with Karolina right there—so close, and looking even more worrisome in person. She couldn’t leave her.

“We will come back for her,” Alex shouted, from the doorway. “I promise.”

“Nico,” Molly called, “please. I can’t lose you, too.”

And so Nico staggered to her feet, backing out of the room, watching as Stacey allowed Karolina’s limp body to slip the floor. Nico held the spell until she passed out, a mile away from the Stein’s. The darkness was a relief.

{Day 98}

If Jonah hadn’t been standing outside the lab, Alex’s plan to take the aliens by surprise might have worked. Chase set the precedent for their new plan, however, when he blew Jonah off the lawn and into the pool without blinking. His Fistigons were apparently more ready than they had given him credit for.

“Freeze!” Nico yelled, instinctually imitating her mother. The water shimmered and froze, the surface hardening instantly.  

Gert’s mouth dropped open. “What are you doing? We can’t kill him!”

“We’re not going to,” Nico shouted, sprinting toward the lab’s entrance. “Chase, stay out here and break the ice after he passes out but before he drowns, okay?”

Chase nodded. “Can you guys handle Tina and Stacey on your own?”

“Not looking like we have much of a choice,” Molly yelled, easily yanking the outer door off its hinges and disappearing inside.

Nico glanced back at Chase, Fistigons pointed down at the pool his father was trapped in, and then she ducked through the door and into the lab.

Tina had obviously heard them coming because by the time Nico made it inside, Molly was sprawled on the floor. Nico shot a spell at her, but Tina dodged it, backing up toward the two glowing boxes at the back of the room.

“Molly!” Gert shouted, dropping to her knees at her sister’s side.

Nico jumped back as a shot of light flew past her face, the heat still buzzing in the air when she rolled away.

“Alex!” she shouted, “can you figure out how to get Karolina out of the box without waking up evil ginger alien mother over there?”

Her only response was a grunt as Alex dropped to the floor to avoid another barrage of light from Tina, but she saw out of the corner of her eye that he was making his way toward the computers.

“Nico,” Tina said, using a tone that Nico could tell was supposed to sound like her mother’s voice instead of an imposter’s, “I know we can work this out. I don’t want it to come to violence.”

“Since when,” Nico answered, launching a set of ropes from the staff toward Tina, who burned them to nothing with a flick of her hand.

“She’s in the right box, Nico,” yelled Alex, typing furiously on the keyboard. “Just give me two more minutes.”

“You know what,” Tina said, jumping forward and catching Nico off guard with the sudden aggression, “for a mother, this woman sure doesn’t like you very much.”

The stream of light hit Nico in the side as she was spinning to avoid it, and she hurtled across the room. Nico’s vision exploded with stars, her back slamming into unforgiving metal. All the air was pushed from her lungs, and she heard one of her ribs crack.

“Nico!”

Her head lolled forward, red dancing in the corners of her vision, but she used the staff to push herself to her feet. With a jolt, she realized the metal box she hit was Karolina’s—where she was standing was the closest she’d been to her in 98 days.

“Bitch slap,” she croaked, pointing the staff at Tina and watching with some satisfaction as a sudden wind seemed to spring from nowhere and whack Tina across the face so hard it knocked her into the wall.

“How’s it coming, Alex?” she panted, pain radiating from her ribs with every breath.

“Try opening the box,” he answered, not looking up. “I think I got it unlocked.”

Nico spun on the spot and tentatively pushed the lid of the box. It shifted. Hands shaking, she took a deep breath and shoved the lid as hard as she could, sliding it three quarters of the way off. It was enough. As carefully as possible, Nico reached inside and gently ran her fingers across Karolina’s cheek and jaw. She was warm. She was alive.

Relief flooded through her system so fast that her legs felt weak beneath her, but she turned toward the others, eyes shining.

“You guys, she’s alive,” Nico told them, unable to stop the smile from spreading across her face. “She’s alive.”

Suddenly the lid to the second box flew off, and Stacey jumped out, looking only mildly less like her entire body had developed a serious case of dandruff than she had in the staff’s projection hours before.

Tina, groaning, stood up as well. The two woman looked at each other and then shot bolts of light at Nico, one after the other. Nico ducked down behind the box, not daring to leave Karolina’s side.

“I thought you said it was safe to open the box,” Nico shouted.

“No, I said it was unlocked,” answered Alex, diving out of the way of a computer-frying beam, “two different things.”

Just then a chair flew across the room and hit Stacey in the face, knocking her back down into her box, and Nico turned to see Gert running behind a car for cover. Molly army crawled forward, narrowly avoiding Tina’s latest shot.

“I can carry Karolina,” she said, “if you can give me some cover to get out of here.”

Nico nodded, shooting a shield spell over the box and standing up again, ignoring the fiery protest from her ribs. She glanced down at Karolina to make sure she was still okay, and her breath caught in her chest.

“Nico?” the voice was soft and rough, like it hadn’t been used in a long time. But it was there, and it was unmistakable. Karolina was looking up at Nico, her eyes glistening and full of warmth as they searched Nico’s face.

“Nico,” she said again, just that, like it was enough and always had been just to have Nico there, and even though it was dangerously absurd timing, Nico leaned down into the box and kissed her. Karolina’s lips were chapped, and her fingers were freezing when she reached up and cupped Nico’s face in her hand. But as Nico breathed her in, the only thing that she could think about was that after all this time of being a runaway, she had finally come home again.

“Guys, I think we should really get out of here,” Molly said, unable to hide the smile from her voice. “Not to, like, ruin the moment or anything.”

Tina shot a beam of light at the car Gert was hiding behind, exploding the engine in a burst of energy. Gert shrieked and jumped behind a different one.

“FYI, the moment will be ruined forever if one of us gets barbecued right now,” Alex yelled. “Let’s go!”

Nico stood up.

“Safe passage,” she shouted, and then, looking down into Karolina’s eyes one more time, she added one word— “home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of us are incapable of writing two shots when we promised ourselves that the story would not go longer than that and it shows.


	3. Last Lights

Nico realized the spell had worked on everyone when she got outside, but for one, horrible second she thought it might have been too late.

Jonah was sprawled on the ground, unconscious. Somehow, though, he had managed to get out of the pool and force Chase into it. He was floating, face down, in the icy water.

“Chase.”

The word left Gert like a prayer. Molly wordlessly shifted Karolina into Nico and Alex’s arms, and she ran forward with Gert, helping her to haul Chase from the water. His lips were blue, and his eyes were closed, but as soon as he hit the air, he immediately coughed and started to breath.

Gert was frantic, running her hands across his face, his chest, his shoulders. “He’s so cold,” she murmured, and then she repeated it, louder, “He’s so cold.”

“Let me try and help,” Karolina offered, her voice still raw and quiet. “I can warm him up the fastest.” She was trying to support her own weight, upright between Nico and Alex, but Nico could feel her shaking with the effort. She tightened her grip around Karolina’s waist.

“Just don’t push yourself too hard, okay?” Nico asked, keeping her voice low so that only Karolina could hear her. “Please.”

Karolina smiled weakly and nodded, unwinding her arm from around Alex’s shoulder and leaning more heavily into Nico. She raised her free hand, fingers trembling, and a faint, rainbow colored light moved across the lawn to encompass Chase. Gert watched the colors dancing across his skin, awe struck at seeing him contained in the lights. Nico knew how she felt. Feeling Karolina’s weight against her again, seeing the familiar sparkle of her skin—her existence was more magic than Nico’s staff could ever hope to be. But then something went wrong.

The usually pinkish purple light turned ruby, and Chase’s eyes shot open as Karolina sucked in a breath and crumpled into Nico, her whole body shaking and glowing a harsh, hot red.

“Karolina.” Nico fell under Karolina’s sudden weight, shifting herself to the ground first and clenching her teeth against the jar to her ribs. “Karolina,” Nico repeated, ignoring the simmering heat burning against her skin. “Look at me, look at me.”

Karolina was panting, and her breaths came in heavy gulps. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, glazed with pain. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, “I can’t…. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Her light pulsed violently, searing Nico’s hand where she was gripping Karolina’s bare arm, and Karolina writhed and shouted.

“Help!” Nico shouted, her voice breaking, desperate enough that she would have taken help from anyone, even Jonah, if he could make Karolina’s pain stop. “No, no, no—“

The red light pulsed again, and Nico had to let go of Karolina’s arm or the heat would have seared through her hand, but the burn was nothing compared to the ache that tore through Nico’s chest when she heard Karolina’s strangled cry.

Suddenly Molly was there, and she was picking up both of them, and they were running—running away again, away from the Stein’s, away from Jonah, but Nico wondered, as Karolina’s panicked eyes latched onto Nico’s, whether they were already too late after all.

Four hours later, Nico was curled on her side, knees pulled up to her chest. It hurt her ribs to stay in that position, but the pain kept her awake, and she needed to stay awake. She needed to be ready if the red light, whatever it was, took over again. Karolina was sleeping next to her, no longer glowing or—Nico desperately hoped—hurting.

Nico had survived 98 days without her, and now that she was back Nico couldn’t imagine surviving even one more. But something was wrong. The car ride home had been enough to confirm that.

Chase had told them, after Karolina’s glow had finally subsided, leaving her sweaty and wracked with shivers, that he had watched the same thing happen when Jonah had experimented with her light in the box. His dad—his actual dad, using his own brain— had invented the concept, Chase had admitted, his head down, staring at Gert’s fingers wrapped in his own. Victor had come up with the idea of weaponizing the light. Whether that was true or not, none of the kids knew. But it didn’t matter who thought of it, not really. To Nico, it only mattered how to fix it.

“I know it works kind of like a poison to them,” Chase had said, “like Kryptonite, I guess.”

Alex raised his eyebrows. “Was that really a Superman reference coming from the lacrosse guy?”

The car was cramped, and Karolina’s eyes were closed. Her fists were clenched, one wrapped in Nico’s jacket so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Karolina was leaning against Nico, pale and quiet. Her breath was gentle on Nico’s neck, and as scared as she was, Nico let herself feel that breath, steadily coming in and out, for the rest of the car ride home. They could figure it out. As long as she was breathing, they had time to figure it out.

“Nico.”

Nico blinked, startled back into the present. A pair of blue eyes was watching her, and Nico, ridiculously, couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her face. “You should be sleeping,” Nico whispered, scooting forward until her forehead was touching Karolina’s. “It’s the middle of the night.”

Karolina pressed her lips quickly to Nico’s and smiled. “I would, but my girlfriend is watching me sleep, which I’m pretty sure she herself told me herself was creepy.”

Nico snorted and looked down, shaking her head. But when she spoke, her voice was quiet. “You were gone for so long… some nights the memories of you felt like they were too good to really be true at all.”

“You know,” Karolina said, softly, “the only thing I could think about in that tube for so long was that I never got the chance to tell you that I love you.”

Nico’s eyes snapped back up to see Karolina’s face, not as a projection, not silent and asleep, but real and vibrant and seeing her—loving her. Karolina’s expression was earnest, eyes wide and bright. Just like Leslie had described those months ago, under the stars. After everything that had happened, Karolina still managed to see the world with the same open heart that she had at 9 years old, and Nico loved her so much she was entirely overwhelmed with the reality of it.

“No matter what they put me through in there, I knew I had to get back to you and tell you, tell you every day for as long as you’ll hear it,” Karolina said, eyes searching Nico’s. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Nico whispered. “I mean really, I do—I love you so much.”

Karolina laughed, and it was the best sound Nico had ever heard. She closed the distance between them, pressing her mouth to Karolina’s, tasting each other’s smiles at first until the kiss intensified, deepening as Nico’s tongue slid against Karolina’s lip and into her mouth. Karolina wove her fingers through Nico’s hair, pulling her closer.

“Actually, if I remember right,” Karolina teased, her breath mingling with Nico’s, mischief in her eyes, “you lamp me. Or maybe lump me? I don’t think I heard the word love in there, though.”

“Mmm,” Nico agreed, sliding her fingers up Karolina’s side, relishing the shiver that ran through Karolina’s body at her touch, “I do lamp you, though. I’ll prove it right now.”

Karolina bit her bottom lip, fingers tracing the contours of Nico’s face. “How are you going to do that?”

Nico smiled. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and see,” she murmured. And then she pressed her lips back against Karolina’s, and she let herself get lost in the galaxy of the night.

The next morning, Karolina was still sleeping when Nico woke up. She looked over at her, sunlight playing in the tangles of her blond hair, and she slid out of bed as quietly as possible, ignoring her protesting ribs. Funny how the pain hadn’t bothered her too much last night.

She was still smiling to herself, retracing the newly formed memories, when she walked into the living room for training.

“Nico, we need to talk,” Alex said.

His expression wiped the smile from her face immediately. Gert and Chase looked just as somber.

“About the red light?” Nico asked, trying to stay casual. “Yeah, we have to figure out what’s going on with that so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. But she seemed fine last night.”

Alex and Chase exchanged looks, and Gert’s eyebrows furrowed. A fresh wave of familiar fear began to rise in Nico’s stomach.

“What? What’s going on? Gert?”

Gert looked at Nico, her brown eyes full. “Alex managed to send the information from Jonah’s computer to his yesterday at the lab. He found out—he found out what’s going on.”

Nico raised her eyebrows, anger bubbling through her worry. “Which is what, exactly?”

Alex quickly pushed his glasses up on his nose and flipped his computer screen toward Nico.

“It looks like Jonah was experimenting with Karolina’s energy, like Chase said. He was doing a few things with it, but one of them was taking it and weaponizing it,” Alex explained, pointing to some graphs on the screen that Nico ignored. “Basically, he extracted the natural radiation that Karolina emits when she glows, and he recalibrated it to be more focused. Only he wasn’t just taking the energy from her. He was testing it against her. It looks like, from these calculations, that the new energy irradiated her body in a way that it wasn’t designed to handle. Usually, her light functions through a kind of osmosis, where it passes through her and out into the air because her body is less concentrated with the radiation than the atmosphere, so her skin acts as a kind of semipermeable membrane. Even when she’s not intentionally glowing, she emits harmless low level radiation that our eyes can’t see.”

Nico was staring at the charts now, wracking her brain to remember freshman science classes. She wasn’t thinking about the word irradiated. She couldn’t. “Okay, so now what? The light is more concentrated or something?”

Alex and Chase exchanged another glance, and Nico snapped. “Would you stop doing that and just tell me what the hell is going on?”

“The light is more concentrated, basically, yeah,” answered Chase. “It’s more concentrated than what her body is designed to handle, but it’s also more concentrated than the atmosphere outside of her. So there’s really nowhere for it to go.”

Alex nodded. “Her skin isn’t designed to release that much radiation all at once, so some of it goes but not enough. Even the molecules that are released can get reabsorbed because the whole thing has kind of short circuited her system. It gets worse when she tries to glow because it forces more out than her body can handle, which is what causes the pain and the burning.”

Nico blinked, unable to process the wall of information all at once. “But she’s—now that the experiments have stopped, she’ll get better, right?”

Chase looked down, and Alex’s eyes softened. “I don’t think so, Nico. The healing tube was stopping it from progressing before, but it’s sort of like an alien version of radiation sickness. Once it’s there…”

“No,” Nico stated, “no, we didn’t get her back just to watch her— no. There has to be something we can do, a cure, anything.”

“Chase figured out that it’s not dangerous for other people,” Gert said, biting her lip. “The radiation exists in a third category, not ionizing or nonionizing. It’s unique, so you can stay as close to her as you want without… she doesn’t have to be alone.”

Gert’s words, more than any scientific explanation, cut through Nico’s desperate denial. “How—“ Nico choked on the words, too thick in her throat, and then she braced herself and tried again. “How long?”

“A couple weeks,” Alex said, his voice unnaturally strained. “Maybe less.”

Black spots danced in Nico’s vision, and she sat down hard on one of the dilapidated couches, sinking into the cushions.

“You guys didn’t tell her about the cure first?” Molly asked, her voice ringing loudly from the stairs where she was just emerging from her bedroom. “I told you last night, you should have started with the cure.”

Nico’s eyes snapped up, and hope rose in her, cutting through the despair with razor sharp precision and pain. Her eyes filled with tears. If there were hope to hang on to, then she had to do it. No matter how much farther it would leave her to fall if it collapsed.

“There’s a cure?” Nico croaked, her voice cracked. “Why the hell wouldn’t you have led with that?”

“A cure for what?”

All five of them immediately turned toward the voice, still raspy with sleep. Karolina glanced around at them, bemused, and then asked her question again, directed at Nico. “A cure for what?”

Nico opened her mouth to answer, completely at a loss for what to say, how to begin to explain, but before she could try Karolina suddenly went alarmingly pale. “I don’t feel well,” she said, and then ran toward the bathroom.

“I want to know every single thing about the cure when I get back down here,” Nico announced over her shoulder as she dashed up the stairs after Karolina. “Starting with how to get it.”

Karolina was on the bathroom floor, leaning back against the bathtub with her eyes closed and her breathing shallow. Before Nico could say anything, Karolina leaned over the toilet, retching into the bowl. Nico rushed forward and dropped to her knees, pulling Karolina’s hair back with one hand and rubbing her back with the other.

“It’s okay,” she murmured softly, ignoring the rising sense of dread building in her chest, “you’ll be okay.”

Karolina spit weakly and then leaned back again, eyes still closed, catching Nico’s fingers with her own. Nico slid closer to her, wiping the sweat beaded across her forehead. Then she noticed the blood on Karolina’s lips. Panicked, she glanced into the toilet. Blood. She was throwing up blood. Nico fought back her own sudden nausea, and she softly wiped the blood from Karolina’s lips with her thumb.

Karolina opened her eyes.

“The cure is for me,” she said. Her voice was weak but not unsure. “I’m dying.”

Nico’s eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head. “That’s not going to happen. I won’t let that happen.”

“Nico.” Karolina said her name so gently it was breaking Nico’s heart, right then, there on the cracking bathroom floor. “I need you to know that—“

“No,” Nico whispered, fierce and pleading, “please. Please promise me that you’ll fight this. Promise that you’ll fight this with me until we find the cure, okay?”

Nico searched Karolina’s eyes, willing her to be okay, to stay. “Don’t give up,” she whispered, resting her forehead against Karolina’s. “Please don’t give up.”

Karolina gave her a watery smile, tears spilling down and dripping onto their joined hands. “I promise,” she agreed, nodding against Nico.

Nico knew that she had been asking a lot when she begged Karolina to promise to try and fight the poison, but as the days slipped by and Karolina’s pain got worse and worse, the weight of that vow became an unrelenting, crushing force.

For the next week, Nico spent most of her time taking care of Karolina, who was so tired and weak that she spent almost all day and night either asleep or throwing up. She had spiked a fever less than 48 hours after they had gotten her back, and to everyone’s horror, it sporadically activated the red, blazing light. Nico knew she would never be able to erase the echoes of Karolina’s strangled cries, the look of terror in her wide, searching eyes. Karolina was dying, and Nico had no choice but to admit that to herself as she wiped the blood from her chapped lips, brushed the tangles from her snarled hair, used every spell Nico could think of to lessen Karolina’s pain, diminish her agony.

It had been 9 days, and they still didn’t have the cure. But now, finally, they did have a plan to get it. It taken them so long to find because they had assumed it was in the Stein’s lab. But it was Robert who had kept it. Robert who, Nico had been surprised to discover, invented it. And Robert who agreed to give it to them—as long as Nico was the one to meet him to pick it up.

Alex had wanted to go with her, but Nico refused. She drove alone, back through the winding streets of her old neighborhood. The mansions seemed ominous in the dark, their towering shadows forcing the suburban streets to reveal that even they had secrets. Nico pulled into her driveway and shut off the engine. She told Robert she would go that far, but she wasn’t coming inside. True to his word, he was waiting outside the garage.

“Thank you for coming, Nico,” he said, when she got out and walked near enough to hear him.

His hair looked more flecked with grey than it had last time she had seen him, and the scar on his neck was still raised and light pink. She pushed the memories of him as a loving father from her mind, ignored the nostalgia that he must have known could surface from being back here again after months and months had passed. He was the key to Karolina’s survival. The fact that he was her father was incidental.

“Do you have it?” Nico asked, keeping her tone neutral.

He nodded, his eyes filled with sadness. “It’s in here,” he said, picking up a briefcase from where it had been sitting near his feet and offering it to her. “But it’s not finished yet.”

“What?” Nico’s attempt to be civil dropped away as a dozen reminders of betrayal latched back in. “You told us on the phone that you had a cure, that you made it.”

“I do have a cure,” Robert agreed, reaching forward to comfort Nico. She jerked away from his touch. “But I’m the only one I’ve tried it on. Gert said that you needed it for Karolina, but I hadn’t incorporated alien biology into my equation yet. It will eradicate the red light in humans because I assumed that was why Jonah was weaponizing it—to use it against use.”

Nico could barely control the rage she felt coursing through her, drowning out the sound of anything but the blood rushing in her ears. She reached out for the briefcase.

“Give it to me.”

Robert frowned. “Nico, if you show me where you’re staying, let me help you, I could adapt it. I’m sure I could.”

Nico’s hands were shaking with the effort not to blast her father into oblivion with her staff. “So that’s why it had to be me to come and get the cure,” she hissed. “You thought you could manipulate me into showing you where we’ve been staying this whole time.”

“No, Nico,” Robert said, sounding desperate now. “I genuinely want to help you and Karolina. But I knew if I told you it wasn’t ready then you wouldn’t come, and I had to see you. I had to tell you how sorry I am that things have turned out this way.”

The staff extended in Nico’s hand, and she stared at Robert with eyes glinting as hard as steel. “Give me the fucking briefcase. Now.”

He extended it again, holding in front of him, moonlight glancing off the silver handle. She snatched it out of his hand, got in the car, and drove away without looking back.

By the time she got back to the hostel, she had a plan. Part of her wondered if it made her more like her parents than she wanted to admit, but she didn’t care. It could save Karolina—it was the only thing that could. And she was going to do it regardless.

She burst inside, suitcase in hand, expecting to see Alex and Chase working in the living room, but instead she was met by an empty room and red lights flashing from the treehouse. Only this time, there was no yelling, no screams of pain. It was silent. And the silence sent a bolt of fear so powerful through Nico that she almost forgot about her plan altogether, almost forgot about the briefcase in her hand. She sprinted up the stairs, pushing past Chase and Alex, who were standing near the treehouse door. Karolina was on the bed, the red lights dimming back into her skin. Gert and Molly were next to her, holding her hands, and they both looked up when Nico came in. But Karolina’s eyes stayed closed.  

“What happened?” Nico asked, her voice somehow sounding a million miles away. “When did that start again?”

Molly’s lip was quivering, but she managed to answer Nico through her tears. “Not long after you left,” she told her, voice breaking. “At first she was awake, but then she just passed out. She kept glowing, but she wasn’t screaming or moving or anything. And now she’s—well, she feels cold, Nico.”

“Her heart’s still beating,” Gert whispered, two fingers pressed gently against Karolina’s neck. “And she’s breathing.”

“We need to give her the cure now,” Alex said, nodding toward the briefcase still clasped in Nico’s hand. “She’s not going to survive another attack like that.”

“No, we…” Nico’s voice broke, and she dropped the briefcase, moving toward the foot of the bed. “We can’t. It was designed for humans. It wouldn’t work on her.”

Her words hung in the air, and no one broke the silence that followed. Alex grabbed Nico’s shoulder, squeezed once, hard, and then walked slowly from the room. Chase and Molly drifted out, too, Chase throwing a comforting arm around Molly as she cried into his chest. Gert stood to leave, blinking back tears that were coming hard and fast, but Nico stopped her on the way out.

“In five minutes I need you to come back in here, okay?”

Gert tilted her head, confused. “What… what do you mean?”

Nico gripped Gert’s shoulders and looked into her eyes, needing her to understand. Needing her to trust. “In five minutes, come back here, and use what’s in the briefcase, okay?”

Gert looked from the case to Karolina to Nico. Her eyes widened.

“Nico, I don’t—“

“Gert,” Nico interrupted, her voice shaking. “Will you do it?”

Gert nodded and then wrapped Nico in a hug, squeezing her tight and hard. Then she pulled away without glancing back and shut the door behind her.

Nico took a deep, steadying breath and walked toward the bed. Karolina’s eyes were still closed, her cheeks hollowed and pale from months of experiments and over a week of debilitating sickness. Nico slid into the bed next to her, gently running her fingers across Karolina’s cheek. She tucked a strand of blonde hair away from her eyes.

“On the day Jonah took you, you promised me that everything would be alright. You said there was no leaving each other, not anymore.”

Nico’s voice broke, and she paused, closing her eyes, before continuing. When she opened them again, Karolina was watching her.

“Hey,” Karolina murmured, her voice so soft Nico had to strain to hear it. “I thought we weren’t allowed to give up.”

Nico shook her head, relief and dread coursing through her in equal measure. It would be harder if Karolina was awake. She didn’t want to see the look on her face when she realized what was happening. “I’m not. How could I, after you’ve been so strong.”

Karolina’s eyes were glistening, and her face crumpled as Nico watched. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, “Nico, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think I can keep my promise. I can’t fight this much longer, and I want—I need you to know how much I love you. Loving you taught me what love is. I never wanted to let you down.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Nico answered, gently wiping Karolina’s cheeks where her tears fell, “You couldn’t let me down, okay? Hey, I mean it.”

Nico tipped Karolina’s chin up, letting herself drink in the fact that she was real, she was there. “If we had to do it all again, every day, all the shit, all the bad, I would do it in a heartbeat just to relive this past year with you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I had been in the dark for so long that without you, I might have forgotten there was light at all. You’re my light.”

Nico kissed Karolina, quick, salty with the taste of tears and blood, and then she activated her staff. Karolina frowned, suddenly confused.

“Nico, what—“

“Transfer the red radiation to me,” Nico whispered, not taking her eyes off of Karolina.

Karolina’s eyes widened, realization setting in.

“No!” she tried to shout, wincing with the effort, her voice coming out barely above a croak, “Nico, no!”

But the spell was already working. Red light spilled from Karolina, pouring from her body and filling the air with a poisonous, flaming glow.

The fact that it didn’t seem to be hurting Karolina as it flushed from her system was Nico’s last coherent thought as the light enveloped her, burning impossibly hot when it flooded through her skin. And Karolina’s frantic, pleading face was the last thing she saw before the darkness collapsed in on her mind.

Nico was not conscious when Karolina’s desperate calls for help brought the rest of the kids running back into the room, Gert leading the way. She couldn’t hear Karolina begging her to stay.

“Nico, no, no, no…” Karolina sobbed, hands running in vein across Nico’s face, her shoulders, her arms. “Please, God, no. I can’t—I can’t.”

Nico wasn’t watching as Karolina unraveled even as her strength returned, didn’t see Molly wrap her arms around her, comforting her and trying to keep her back so Gert could inject the cure into Nico’s suddenly lifeless, limp arm.

Nothing echoed in the blackness that had surrounded Nico, even though Alex was shouting at Gert, asking her if the cure would work, repeating that the only reason Karolina had survived the radiation as long as she had was because of her alien DNA.

“A human couldn’t handle those levels,” he yelled, his hands moving from his hair to his glasses and back again. “What good’s a cure if she’s already dead. It could have killed her instantly to absorb that much.”

Nico was pale and still where she had slumped onto the bed, and Karolina broke away from Molly to lift her shakily onto her own lap, cradling her head as soon as Gert injected the cure. Nico didn’t feel the needle enter her arm or the deep blue glow of the antidote surge into her veins. She didn’t feel Karolina’s lips as they pressed against her forehead, breathing promises and prayers against her skin, begging Nico to come back to her.

Time didn’t exist for Nico, so she didn’t know that minutes had passed without her stirring, and she didn’t realize she had missed the first half of a desperate, whispered story Karolina was murmuring to her.

Instead, the first thing Nico heard was the part of the story she had suspected but dreaded.

“What happened to you, in my mind, over and over—there was nothing I could do to stop it. I think the only reason I stayed sane was because some part of me knew that it wasn’t real. That you were out there, alive, looking for me.”

Karolina’s eyes searched Nico’s unresponsive face, but Nico didn’t know that. She kept listening, though.

“I never doubted that you would find me, Nico, not once. So I forced myself to survive, no matter how many times they killed you, no matter how many ways I watched you die. As long as the real you was still okay, I could handle anything. Your ability to survive in the darkness, to use it as your lifeline, it kept me alive.”

With a jolt, Nico realized she could feel arms wrapped around her, feel fingers tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “But Nico,” Karolina’s voice dropped, broken and impossibly soft. “I also knew that if the worst happened to me, if I didn’t make it, you would find a way to survive. You’re strong, so strong, and as much as it hurt being in that box, I was so relieved it was me and not you. I couldn’t have done it. I couldn’t have kept it together.”

Karolina closed her eyes, a tear sliding from her chin onto Nico’s face. If she had been watching, she would have seen Nico’s face twitch slightly where it hit. Nico felt it.

“I can’t do this without you,” Karolina whispered. “You found me once. Please, please come back to me again. Open your eyes, Nico. Please,” Karolina breathed. “Open your eyes.”

Nico had lost Karolina for 98 days. She had watched her struggle with pain and sickness for 9 more. But when she opened her eyes, the cure having finished its purifying path through her body, she stopped counting. Because the first thing Nico saw was a pair of ocean blue eyes, widening in shock and joy. Karolina gave a sob of relief, lifting Nico up, cradling Nico’s head against her own.

“You’re okay,” Karolina said, as much to herself as to Nico. “You’re okay.”

Nico pulled back just enough to look fully into Karolina’s face. “No leaving each other, right?” Nico breathed, smiling as she leaned in to kiss Karolina with all the strength she had left. “We’re home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! All feedback is welcome-- good, bad, and in between :)


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